Long story short, I had a horrendous time trying to get along with every one of my colleagues, which meant that they didn't feel super inclined to teach me much, even if it meant alleviating their workload in the long run. Heck, you might even chalk it up to me being a burden they didn't feel like dragging along. Or maybe it's because I'm a young local who is passionate about cars, and therefore an immediate threat to their livelihood. I don't know. I honestly don't. It could be any of those reasons and more. I'm no psychic. I was only a very bad mechanic.
Needless to say then, that I've had a lot of bad memories and experiences, along with the classical buried feelings that had to stay buried for me to stay somewhat functional a human being, associated with my mechanic days, cars, and workshops in general. It got so bad at one point I legitimately found myself hating cars. I got so stressed out and frustrated, that, even away from the workshop, I'd frantically look for bolts, seams, clips, anything, trying to mentally tear the car apart, wondering how they ran, how they are to be disassembled, etc.. Of course, because I was hot garbage as a mechanic, often such frantic thinking got me nowhere, and it'd of course piss me off. Other telltale signs that I was rapidly losing interest in the job include, but are not limited to: arriving later and later, even skipping work with no MC or even telling anyone, more and more frequent toilet breaks since I'm not needed anyway, choosing to chill on my own when the workshop slows down when I could be observing my seniors perform work on a car, or just cursing and swearing in my head whenever I see a car arrive.
It's scary how my brain snowballs thoughts and emotions so rapidly. I've always wanted to be a mechanic. Always. Ever since my days as a Polytechnic student, enrolled in a course for a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering and never having even touched a screwdriver in the three angst filled years, I've always wanted to learn about cars my own way. "If they won't teach me, I'll find my own path and learn along the way!", was sort of my naïve, starry eyed mindset back then. One I kinda didn't outgrow even as a 24 year old man trying to support his family. As such, I think I always put immense, soul crushing pressure on myself. "You have to work hard for what you want", "Nothing in the world is free, you have to earn/ take it", or sayings to those effects, I think is safe to say are pretty common. I guess in my own way I've always felt so... alone, and hopeless. Even when I get the job I always wanted, with a direct bus to and from home, within an hour's travelling time, I seem to always find a way to be dissatisfied and sad. And I dare not be kind to myself and pat myself on the back because what if I ever get content with what I have? I'm legitimately so afraid of being content and... happy. I'm afraid of being happy. Because I don't have what I said I want.
Fucking funny, isn't it? Don't worry, I acknowledge it. You can laugh. Hell, I'll even laugh along with you. Ready? On a count of three: 1, 2, HAHAHAHAHA!
A psychotherapist, within an hour, made such a scarily accurate assessment of my mentality and fears within an hour of talking to me. There's a very big feeling of emptiness within me, which is why I always try so hard to achieve stupidly impossible things, or strive for perfectionism in all that I do.
The irony is real. To think someone could figuratively try to move a car using the emptiness in the fuel tank to drive it.
Anyway, in accordance to that "I have to do this on my own, since no one understands me, nor will anyone even teach me" mentality, I bought a game during the Steam Summer Sale 2018: Car Mechanic Simulator 2018:
And thus I relive my mixed bag of emotions in trying to become a mechanic: prior to buying the game, I felt so pumped about it, I felt like it was the perfect way for the currently shut-in, desk bound me to learn about car servicing, repairs, and assembly. Then I get the game, I can't figure out how to take apart a car I need to take apart, I get frustrated, and I start to hate cars all over again. And this isn't even with me bruising my delicate hands, getting scalding hot oil draped over me like hot fudge on a sundae because my colleagues insist on working on a car hot, etc..
But perhaps the most intriguing about my experience with CMS2018 so far is just how the game can so accurately draw out my real life tendencies and faults. The usually careful, thorough, and pedantic me gets all befuddled, clumsy, forgetful, and, well... a real life car workshop really doesn't have space for people like that. Hell, after taking apart the car's engine and reinstalling it, I attempted to start the car without even putting any engine oil in it. Of course, the game didn't let me start the engine, instead telling me there's no oil. In real life I'd have destroyed a perfectly serviceable engine easily worth several thousands. I could feel my body bracing for my superiors' irate and uncouth scoldings, and my mind was already frantically searching for excuses/ reasonable sounding lies as to why and how it happened.
I feel so small, pathetic, and useless. Even when a game guides me along so much it's almost a brain dead experience, I could fuck up something so... urgh, you know? I don't even have the words for it.
Of course, this is where my therapy and exercises come in. Of course I'd screw something up; it's my first time playing the game! And I went ahead and did the most difficult thing anyone could attempt in a workshop: tearing apart and rebuilding a whole fucking engine. In real life technicians need years and years of experience to even think about attempting that, and even the very best of each workshop gets entrusted with that task! I still did it. Me, 24 years old, 4 months' workshop experience, overhauled an engine!
It's just so... odd, you know? Being a mechanic is something everyone makes sound like such a "lowly" job, from friends and family who chide a Diploma holder who'd want to get his hands dirty for 6 days a week for 1.6k a month, to even my own colleagues, who constantly put the fact that they have no education at the forefront, almost as a brag, almost to put themselves down as false humility. "If we can do it, you should be able to!", "I only needed to watch this once to learn how to do it!", "you don't even know how to reverse the direction of the air gun?!", "I can't explain how to do it, I learned by watching others", "there's nothing to it!", were all common when I was a mechanic. They talk themselves down to make the work they do sound easy, yet I had trouble with even the simplest of tasks like handling a screwdriver, or figuring out clips. But of course they'd occasionally break character to boast about how important the job they do is, and how society can't function without us. Then they emphasise safety, doing a flawless job, making the car figuratively fall in love with us... which is it? Is this easy or not? Do you want to suck yourself off or not? Pick a side, Christ.
And now, playing through the game with no one to even reprimand me, I get frustrated a lot as I fumble through options and parts, trying to figure out WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING IS THERE SOMETHING MISSING MUST MORE BLOOD BE SHED?! For the first time, I felt like I was forcing myself to play a game I didn't enjoy. Forcing myself to play a game that seemed to torture me, feeling as though I needed that torture, somehow. Still, I think playing through this game at least made something start becoming clear to me: why I seem to be such an airhead when I'm in a workshop.
It really is bewildering to sit back and peel off the sheets to reveal the inner workings of a daily necessity we've come to take for granted. It's still a surreal experience that I can find fault with, disassemble and reassemble parts meant to handle hundreds of kilometres per hour, that's meant to be aligned within hundredths of a degree, whom people will put their lives on each day. It kinda makes me feel really small. Each beam, each component, each linkage requires so much thought, innovation, and evolution to become something great and reliable enough for us to put our lives in their hands without a second thought, you know? To fully understand the stresses, required strength, redundancy, tolerances, life expectancy, etc., of each part would probably takes months of intensive studying, let alone how they connect to and work with each other, and yet we're just expected to blaze through them all to get to the next part to disassemble, until we get to the problem part that needs replacing. I feel so... overwhelmed, trying to figure it all out as I take off part after part. On some occasions it makes me question my life and what I can really do with it. Can I work together with people like these parts, to create something trustworthy and life changing like these parts? Am I easy to understand like these parts? Are these parts easy to understand? Am I stupid, or just unlucky? Am I wanting too much from "just a job"? Am I thinking too much? Can one want to know too much from a non sentiment, emotionally moving pile of metal?
I love cars, but having to figure out how to tear them apart... urgh. Maybe it's because I have to scratch and claw at it all on my own that's making me so frustrated; I really can't tell. Could one really do a job that deals in what they enjoy? I love cars, but as a mechanic, after 6 the last thing I want to see is more cars, you know? I stopped playing racing games, I stopped looking at my car collection... There's a rather crude, yet philosophical question I heard from somewhere a long time ago, which I find myself asking a lot throughout my life since then: Do people who produce porn still want to watch porn in their off hours? With porn and sex, it's a biological guarantee that the people who produce porn will still seek out erotic material, right? Can a job burn a person out so badly that they can even reject sex? And, in the same vein, can a job burn a person out to a point he no longer enjoys what he's passionate about? Should a person find a job that deals with his passion as a result? I don't know.
Don't get me wrong; being a mechanic has its amazing moments, both virtually and in real life. I especially fondly remember when our workshop was getting so many cars in a day, we wouldn't even have time to sneeze. Stretched hours into overtime, moments where the small workshop of 4 would band together like a well oiled machine to rush out the last car of the day will stay with me for a long, long time. I guess I've always wanted to feel needed, and to feel like I belonged. Who doesn't, right? In a cheesy way of speaking, it's almost like it restored some faith in humanity for me, to be able to band together with people who dislike me, to put aside our differences to make someone happy. And, of course, how could I describe the feeling of finally being able to wash yourself off, and then emerging to see a shiny, primed, ready to run car sitting patiently, awaiting it's soon to be awed and happy owner?
I just wish I had the ability to make these things happen more often to love my job more. I think being a mechanic at least has made me realise a little more of what I truly value in a job and in life. I think part of my hateful perfectionism at work is due to me wanting to be trusted and relied upon. Trusted that I'd do a proper job with your car because I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I didn't, and I want everyone to know that. Trusted to go the extra mile every time even if it comes at a personal or financial cost because that's what I do, that's who I am, and this is what makes me happy. I just want to wear my heart on my sleeve and be proud of and relied upon for it, but I suppose that's asking too much in this awful world we live in, isn't it? We always have to be fast. We always have to cut corners, so much so that the shortcut methods become the method. We never really have time to really well and truly baby a car as though they were our own, to respect them as though each part has a soul of their own. I suppose that's why I'm going to the "crazy institute" for therapy, HAHA! It just saddens me, you know? And I'm at an impasse, because I know I'm saying crazy talk, I see and know I'm insane, but it'd sadden me to not be myself.
After my short lived stint as a mechanic, I feel as if I've tried everything I know to try, and still couldn't make it. I'm so lost, sad and afraid at this point...
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